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CHAPTER 5
Joe had picked up some relaxed phrases and refreshing attitudes from the American officers he’d worked alongside in the later months of the war. One of his favourites was: Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, three times is enemy action.
He reckoned he was well into the stage of enemy action.
“I’m sure I shall,” he said. “It’s a Tuesday. You save me from the Police Canteen’s version of not very Hot Pot.”
He’d decided that Hu
The steak pie was all that had been promised, served swiftly and correctly with a flurry of starched white napery and good silver cutlery laid out on the table between them. By unspoken consent both men held off from serious conversation, content to enjoy a work of culinary art when it was offered.
“There’s lemon syllabub or Eton mess to follow, or just strawberries,” Hu
Joe was glad he’d taken the hint and declared for the strawberries; the plump miracles of summer magic were duly served on Delft-patterned dishes with a matching pot of yellow Devon cream so thick it had to be spooned from the jug. Finally, comfortably bloated, relaxed and unharried, Joe calculated that his subject must be feeling much the same and decided to come at him crabwise. “Tell me about your name, Adam. Truelove? Hu
“Not that.” The idea seemed to amuse him. “No, it’s a father we share.”
Joe absorbed this and was wondering how to frame his next question without giving offence when Hu
“And I’ve heard it said, Hu
Hu
“Not at all,” Joe said. “I’m all twitching ears and attention.”
“The inevitable happened. In those days, and I’m not so sure it wouldn’t happen now, the girl would have to leave the village for good or perhaps go and spend a month or two with her aunty in Ipswich. She’d return having mysteriously lost all that weight she’d been putting on. Childless, of course. But in my mother’s case, the pregnant girl was married off hurriedly to a by no means unwilling man on the estate, the whole arrangement sweetened by the offer of a cottage on the village green complete with a half-acre potato patch and bake-oven. I was a six-month baby. ‘Popped out just in time for a slice of his mother’s wedding cake,’ as they say in the village.”
“And in Westminster!” Joe chortled. “Quite a few of those about, in all ranks of society. No names, no pack-drill, but I can tell you that one or two of our politicians have surprising dates on their birth certificates.”
Hu
“Good lord! Must have been difficult for Mr. Hu
The craggy features softened in affection. “No. Nothing ever flummoxed the old feller. Head Horseman by trade. That’s a pretty stylish thing to be in Suffolk. It has a certain standing and my stepfather lived up to it. No one would be disrespectful to him or his family, whatever that consisted of. He knew what he was taking on; he loved my mother very much, I think, and he was never less than kind to us. No—he was no Mr. Murdstone.” He gri
“Two? Old Truelove kept himself in the picture, did he?”
“He did. I think he took his inspiration from Charles II, whom he much resembled. Charming rogue but affectionate to all his offspring including the illegitimate ones. He had me educated. I outgrew the village school pretty quickly. When he noticed this, he put me into private tutoring alongside his other children. This led to three years at the university. Strings were pulled—perhaps money changed hands—and I was offered one of the eleven ‘poor boy’ places at Trinity. Reading a subject useful to my position in life, of course. In the good old tradition, Sir Sidney was having me raised to become steward of the estates. The land and the house were his passion and he was pleased to find, in me, an equal enthusiasm. I’d been keeping the accounts from the age of sixteen, buying stock, helping to run the farm. I was on the payroll from an early age.”
“A position which gives you access to the best pies in town?”
“It’s an honorary extended membership these days. I gave up my position of servitude—like many others—when the war broke out. I joined up.”
“The Suffolk Regiment?”
“Second battalion. It was quickly mobilised, not short of volunteers, and sent off to France. We were there from Mons to the Armistice. The army changed my perspective. By the end, my mother and stepfather were both dead. I was twenty-six. I wanted to spread my wings. There were openings everywhere for big, healthy chaps like me with a degree in economics and a commission, and I chose the police force. For much the same reasons as yourself, I expect. Once I’d done the basics, promotion was quite quick, and I enjoy the work.”
“Have you maintained your co
“We were never bosom pals. I always felt he resented my relationship with his father. Looking like him, thinking like him, did me no good in Master James’s eyes. ‘Stop bossing me about, Adam! You’re as bad as Papa!’ he used to squeak. James favoured his mother. He’s got that family’s dark, handsome looks. And their talent for manipulation.”
“To say nothing of their political clout and family money?” Joe suggested. “Perhaps the younger brother would provide more interesting material for Herr Freud?”
“There’s no overt bad feeling between us any longer. We began to get on better after the old man died and he inherited. I’ve always admired his energy and intelligence. In fact there is—and always has been—a level on which we meet and understand each other. Under that glossy layer of sophistication there’re some pretty rugged characteristics that he gets from his pa. Just tell him there’s coppicing going on in the twenty acre wood and he’ll be down there like a shot, wielding a bill-hook, and wielding it well. He can layer a hedge, grallock a stag and sink a pint of cider with the best of ’em. I taught him to ride myself. Picked him up, dusted him down and popped him back on his pony whenever he fell off.”
Joe noted the unemphasised implication of Hu